We’ve seen some storms fire off around Lebanon this evening but they have calmed down. They were severe for a time. Our atmosphere just isn’t quite ready for that just yet.

That will change in the coming hours.

A tornado watch was just issued for much of central and western Kentucky until 2:00 a.m. The watch warns of wind gusts to 75 mph and golfball-sized hail. Ours is liable to read very similarly when we get our watch issued later on.

The Storm Prediction Center is warning of widespread, damaging winds tonight. They are right to warn of that. The ingredients for damaging winds are almost perfect this evening. In addition, large hail will be a threat. It’s a good idea to get that car in the garage tonight.

Go over your severe weather plan with your family now. Don’t wait for warnings to be issued and realize you don’t have a plan. The graphic below is for a tornado warning, but you need to take severe t-storm warnings just as seriously as tornado warnings tonight, especially since those storms will be capable of producing damage similar to a weak tornado.

The latest HRRR model shows the line of storms moving onto the plateau at 1:00 am. Hopefully, this speeds up and gets here a bit quicker. The quicker it gets here, the quicker it gets out of here.

We remain in the ENHANCED RISK for severe storms. That is level 3 out of 5 on the severe weather outlook scale.

Have those weather radios turned on. Designate someone to stay up tonight until the storms have passed. As always, I’ll give the all-clear as soon as I can.

Tornado watches will likely be issued later this evening. Those watches will also likely extend to the very early hours of Thursday.

I’ll be tracking it all! I’ll update again as needed.

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